Finding Me
by Yusagi
Summary: Sometimes things go terribly wrong, and sometimes everything falls apart. And sometimes, the universe expects you to pick up and keep on going anyway.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Yeah nothing here is mine.

AN: So essentially I've had a plot bunny like this stuck in my head for awhile. It went through many phases as I sat around hoping to see someone write similar, or come across someone willing to RP an angle with it...and eventually, this is what we end up with when I get tired of waiting, apparently.

...

Nine years before, she couldn't have brought herself to believe she would have found herself here. Five years ago, she'd hoped, but she hadn't believed that they could really make it as long as they had as brilliantly as they had. She'd been hesitant, even afraid to believe things could work themselves out so quickly, and so easily.

Now it felt like second nature to her, and why shouldn't it? She'd spent five years now traveling across a new universe with a new Doctor. She'd only spent two years traveling in the other. Even if Earth still felt a bit strange sometimes, the traveling, the life, the person who wasn't afraid to say the words...even his morning whinging about gray hair (was he imagining that gray hair? When would he get them, it'd been so long since his hair changed on its own, up! Up! Up! Time is burning away and you're just sitting there snoring!), it all felt so normal, she didn't know that she could have gone back to the way it'd been before if she tried.

She didn't want to, and she'd never get the chance, so it didn't matter. She had a whole lifetime to spend still. And it wasn't one she was going to be allowed to squander. Even a little, tiny bit.

Unless sitting around in a cell counted as squandering, but really, that was a quibble.

"You could try t'be more polite." The man didn't look up at her comment, still doing...something to his cuffs. "Not that I mind th'escaping prisoners thing...but it might give us a bit've time to see the scenery once in awhile before we study its masonry, yeah?"

The cuffs fell to the ground with a surprising amount of clatter. Without the sonic screwdriver, even. Clearly he'd taken to heart what she'd said about the number of times he lost it when they were taken prisoner. Or the cuffs were that painfully simple. She wasn't certain, but the expression the Doctor held as he reached over to undo hers was distracted, rather than disgusted. "Doctor?"

"Did you hear them?" He waited only a moment before continuing, striding toward the rather ineffectual looking wooden door. "Their lieutenant. He said something—couldn't quite catch it through the mob-"

"Which you caused."

"Something about swapping the magnetic polarity of the planet." He knelt down in front of the door to study the aging lock a moment, before shoving one of the discarded cuffs into the oversized keyhole.

She frowned, and rubbed at a sore wrist, as she moved to stand behind him. "Doctor, they still hunt witches on this planet. They wouldn't even know what those words mean."

He gave the door a harsh shove, and the wooden structure swung open. She would have thought it a bit pathetic, but then again she doubted whatever he'd done with the cuffs was an easily achieved thing. Regardless of how he didn't bother to look smug about it. "That's what worries me."

"Maybe you misheard 'im?" They evidently didn't believe in guards outside the cells, because Rose didn't spot anyone in the halls they sprinted through.

"No." He flattened himself against a wall, peering into the room that held their things a moment, before wandering into it. Evidently they didn't believe in guarding confiscated materials, either. Which was all the better for retrieving the screwdriver 2.0, but she was beginning to think—as she probably should have from the start—that the Doctor was on to something.

This all seemed rather haphazard and distracted.

"What, then? You think they've got some sort of hidden stash of technology somewhere? Found something, maybe?"

He twisted the screwdriver a bit—to setting 448B, she noted. Scanning for signs of advanced technology in the...something spectrum. She'd practiced with it over the years, as she'd practiced with their young TARDIS, but that one was still a bit tricky for her. "I don't think it's just technology. There's something more."

She frowned, picking up her wristwatch and supplies from the table, before moving to stand next to him and look down at the screwdriver. "Something to th'East, apparently."

He offered her a small smile and held out a hand. "What do you think, shall we go see what it is?"

She grinned and interlaced her fingers in an infinitely familiar gesture. "Lets."

It didn't escape her notice that there lacked any guards in the corridors they maneuvered through. Not one. Even when they broke into a run to cover the distance between them and the technology, no one came to investigate the sounds. The strangest part of it was, she was sure the corridors had been full an hour before, when they'd been led to the cell.

She didn't need to point it out to the Doctor. She could see by his expression that he'd noticed as well. She could see just as easily he hadn't any solid ideas where they'd gone.

Fortunately, they didn't have long to wait. The source of the technology wasn't all that far away from them, only on the other side of the Capitol complex. Behind a significantly sturdier door.

The Doctor gave an amused scoff. "Faux-wood." He rapped his knuckles against it, and though it certainly looked like wood, the answering clang was clearly metallic. "Terrible at pretending to be wood once you're up close. But still far beyond what this culture should have." Not so far beyond that the sonic had any trouble sending it swinging inward, but if she were unimpressed by the door, she was too distracted by the distinctly technological walls within.

He spoke up before she could, in the form of an appreciative sound. "Oh so that's it. Someone's landed here!" He grinned over at her briefly, before taking a step through the door. She wasn't even surprised to turn around and see a hatch instead of a door when she followed after.

"A perception filter?"

"Not quite. Bit more primitive." He gestured to the steel-toned walls around them as they walked down the corridor. "This entire building was built around the ship. The outer walls of the ship are adaptive—that's what the faux-wood was outside. The stone would have been faux-stone, too. It's not very efficient, but then, they're hiding from something a bit bigger than clever, nosy village folk." He glanced over his shoulder. "You're a fugitive. Wanted by three systems, all conveniently at the very longest range this ship can reach."

She spun around in time to see the Mayor fold her hands over her waist. "I suppose you're here for the reward?"

"I could be." There was a dangerous caste to his eyes. The sort that he got when he was deeply offended by something. Something worse than willfully causing global disaster, or...doing whatever she'd done to earn a bounty. Rose remembered reading something about it at the last planet they'd visited, but she hadn't paid it much mind. They weren't exactly intergalactic bounty hunters.

The woman must have seen the look, too, because her posture shifted, and she slipped her hands to her hips. "Oh, but you're not, are you? Just unfortunately curious. And very rude."

"I'm not the one about to kill ten million people."

She shrugged.

Rose frowned. "But why, though? You're hidden here, yeah? No one's finding you, we wouldn't have even found you, why draw attention to yourself?"

"Because they will." The Doctor was scowling now, still watching her. "It's only a matter of time, and the people searching for you, they'll only be slowed down by cheap tricks like a faux-skin on your ship. There's a cruiser just outside orbit already. But energy of that magnitude, that will propel this ship of yours far beyond their reach. Even if the cruiser survives and they connect the catastrophe with you, you'll be long gone, and a thousand years out."

The woman clapped. "You are clever. And still rude. A lady likes to tell her own stories sometimes, you know."

"Don't do this." He shook his head. "There's other ways. These people love you, you can't just kill them!"

"What would you have me do? Stay and be caught? You said it yourself, if I stay here, I might as well turn myself in right now. And the sentence I'm facing is death. Do you have any idea the sort of death they have me slated for?"

"What happened at Alpha Five was a mistake, anyone can see that. You could get an appeal." He took a step forward. "I'll represent you. We'll find a way. Just stop this."

The woman offered a soft smile, and the kindliness that Rose had seen in it before now seemed twisted and mocking. How did she miss that before? "Generous as your offer is, I can't afford to take my chances. You understand."

"You're committing genocide!"

"Read the official reports, dear Doctor, I already have before." She shrugged. "What's one more?"

His hand, which had dropped Rose's some time during his pleading, clenched at his side, and she reached out to touch his arm, stepping forward. It had gone on long enough, obviously the Mayor wasn't going to listen, and Rose wasn't about to let the conversation continue. Not when the subject strayed so close to home. "Fine. Then we'll stop you doing it, and we'll take you back there ourselves. And you can handle th'justice system on your own."

"You'll stop me." The woman chortled. "The system's already started, and it can't be stopped. The only thing you'll be doing is accompanying me and my crew, and if you're less rude from here on, I'll let you go on your way when we arrive."

Rose didn't have time to process her words before the Doctor had her hand in his once more, dashing down the corridors. "Doctor—"

"We'll find a way. It hasn't discharged yet, there'll be a way to divert the energy still!" He led the way down the corridors screwdriver first, following the signal of the machine. She couldn't manage saying anything else at the speed they ran, but the bulkheads already hummed with energy when they skidded to a halt at the open door.

Now they felt the need for a guard, who idly watched the charging machine, instead of the hallway. She rendered the man unconscious while the Doctor sped into the rooms and to the controls of the great machine.

He gave a yelp of pain and recoiled from the controls as she approached. "No luck, Doctor?" He glanced over at her briefly, tucking his free hand into his pocket. The machine crackled ominously as he studied it a moment. "Doctor, how long have we got?"

"Not long. She was stalling us!" He sounded disgusted, and shook his head. "If we'd come straight here-"

"Doctor." She touched his shoulder. "There's no time for that now, yeah? We've just got to fix it. Nothin' the sonic screwdriver can't handle, yeah? Like you said. She wasn't expecting anyone like us to stop her."

His expression softened as he turned to look at her. She knew that look, too. It was one of the ones she'd seen the most, next to his excitable, manic ones. His eyes were warm and so brown, so natural, she could hardly remember when they used to be blue. That ancient knowledge faded somewhat, and the intensity? The intensity was love he never hesitated to voice.

It was one of her favorites.

"...Yeah. You're right." He smiled, and brought up a hand to touch her cheek. "Don't know where I'd be without you."

"Stumblin' about some strange alien marketplace makin' an idiot of yourself." She offered a small, amused grin, which he mirrored quickly enough to soothe the worry that had started to brew in her. "Now, c'mon. Got a world to save, yeah?"

He nodded, glancing at the machine briefly. "Oh, it's simple enough. Here." He pressed the sonic screwdriver to her hands. "Setting 3EC thirty seconds after I start."

"We're reversing it?"

"Can't turn it off. Can't discharge it." He shrugged. "Just need to make a few manual adjustments, use the setting, and we're done!"

"Sounds easy enough, then." She nodded, glancing down to set the screwdriver. When she looked up, he had that soft look on his face again, but it was gone as soon as she'd noticed, and he started toward the machine.

She grabbed his arm. "Doctor, what aren't you telling me?"

"Quite a bit of technological jargon?" He tried for innocent. Either he'd gotten worse at it, or she'd gotten more familiar with him. Either way, he couldn't have looked more guilty if she'd caught him in the TARDIS cookie jar. In fact he hadn't when she did.

"Doctor, what's wrong?"

"Rose." The innocent look was only grim now. "Ten million people are going to die if we don't stop that in the next two minutes."

"I've dealt with two minute deadlines before." She tightened her grip on his arm. "What's wrong? What's going to happen when you go over there and reverse the flow of that machine?"

His expression wavered. "Could be nothing, Rose. Nothing to worry about."

Two minutes. She couldn't just stare. She had to keep her wits, or an entire planet would burn. "What's. Going. To happen?"

His expression turned apologetic. So apologetic, And she just...couldn't hold his gaze, because, five and nine years later, it still dragged her back to a beach in the middle of nowhere. It still broke her heart. "Rose, I'm sorry..."

"Tell me what happens!" She needed to know. Right that moment. She needed to know that it'd hurt people, that it'd destroy the ship in orbit, that it'd leave her crippled. That it was anything but what her mind was drawn to.

"All that energy, Rose, it's got to go somewhere. There's only one place it can go without destroying the planet. Without destroying this ship." He cupped her face in his hands, and she noted the hand he'd tucked in her pocket had an angry red burn across it. "And I'm so, so sorry. There's no other way."

She shook her head, and when she spoke, she wasn't certain she'd really given voice to her thoughts, or simply thought strongly. It sounded just as loud to her own ears. "We'll run away."

He smiled that same sad smile she hated to see, and his voice echoed barely louder than hers. "We won't make it."

"No." She shook her head, more strongly this time. "No, you can't. You can't!"

"I'm sorry."

"Stop—stop saying that!" She took a step back, and he took a step forward, refusing to lose contact. "Find another way. You promised me, so you find another way!"

He closed his eyes a moment, and shook his head. "If I had more time...if we'd gotten here sooner, Rose maybe, but there's no time. There's no time, and I'm sorry, Rose. I can't. Not this time."

His thumbs swept at damp cheeks, and when had she started crying? Or shaking quite so badly?

She found she didn't care.

She opened her mouth to say something, to find some way to change his mind or find another answer, but nothing came. Nothing.

He pulled her up into a kiss not unlike their first on the beach. How very like him to ruin that memory. How very...very...

He rested his forehead against hers. "I love you, Rose."

Her words came out stuttering, and he kissed her again, gently this time, before dashing underneath the machine, yanking and swapping cords. She screamed something, she was sure. She wasn't certain what, even as she did, but he looked up then. He looked up, and those wonderful brown eyes, those eyes she'd never see again, pleaded silently. It wouldn't reverse without her. Without the screwdriver it'd probably only overload and kill everyone on the planet.

A part of her wished her shaking hands would drop the screwdriver even as she lifted it.

There was a flash of blue—was it the screwdriver or the machine? Someone screamed, and she thought it might have been herself.

The scream faded with the crash of the machine, and there was nothing.

Nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

AN: Right, so I definitely had to get this chapter out quickly, because it's ridiculous to have a crossover fic in which there's not even a hint of the crossover. I will still count this as Rose/Ten.5 because, as of this moment, that's what it remains. There will be further notes after the chapter.

...

Empty. The rawness faded, eventually. The pain...she could tuck that away like she did before, when she found herself in the wrong universe on the wrong beach all alone. But it wasn't the same thing this time. Looking back now, she'd been so young and full of defiant hope, she'd picked herself up, brushed herself off, and forged onward with single-minded determination.

She'd had anger, she'd had despair, sometimes. She had an unfinished sentence and a life never lived spurring her onward, giving her the strength to find a way through impossible walls against all odds, and she'd found a way through.

This time she'd felt fury. She'd felt anguish, and guilt, she felt disbelief.

She felt as empty now as she'd felt when the light faded and she stood alone again. The fury, that faded when she dragged the Mayor by her dyed hair and flung her at the feet of the investigating galactic officer, even if whatever fate awaited the woman was better than she deserved.

She'd spent months running over the possibilities, turning over in her head how she could have done it better. How they could have avoided the planet, or solved things just a bit faster. If she'd recognized the Mayor before they'd been arrested, if she'd paid more attention...

In a year, she hadn't found any answers, and it hadn't made her feel any better when she stopped running over the conversation they'd had. It hadn't made her feel any better to stop thinking of all the things she could have said and didn't. All the things they could have done and never could. How very painfully short one life turned out to be.

She still knew things could have gone differently. That they could have, and they never would change. And she was too old and too worn to believe that somehow, just maybe her Doctor had found a way to survive, maybe slipped through a brief rift in time, and waited for her to find him, because there hadn't been anything left of him when the machine was finished. There was so much energy, so much power, nothing would have remained. He'd taken the brunt of ten million deaths.

She hadn't the strength to stir up any stronger grief than mind-numbing emptiness. What was one year of waiting, of drifting in the TARDIS? She hadn't gone home, she hadn't dared. If she went home, she'd be forced to acknowledge he was gone, she couldn't run away and content herself with accepting (yes, that was it...she was accepting it. When she'd finished, things would be...different. But never better.) his loss. She'd stop running, and then she'd collapse, and who would look out for the TARDIS? Who would look out for the universe, and how would that honor his memory?

How would that honor a sacrifice that no one knew he'd even made? A world saved that never knew it was in danger in the first place?

No. No, she had to keep moving. The Doctor had done something when they'd first grown the TARDIS. They'd said it was a necessary step, to share the brunt of the TARDIS' connection between half-Time Lord and human. She'd known it to be a deeply intimate gesture, and a promise stronger than any words that he'd never leave her behind.

Now, sometimes, she almost wondered if he'd always known he'd lead to this, and knew someone would need to look out for the young, frightened TARDIS.

She'd never be able to ask, and a wave of aching swept over her so completely that she very nearly collapsed against the console.

No.

She wouldn't stop. She wouldn't collapse. She'd live the life she and the Doctor should have had. She'd live his life as he'd meant to. She'd make the most of every moment like he always drove her to, she'd save a million stars in the sky, just like he would.

She'd never stop, because the emptiness...she knew it would never go away.

He'd never stop. He was beginning to believe he could wander the entire world and never find a place that hadn't heard his name. Great cities, small towns, tiny villages tucked at the end of crooked, forgotten roads. Someone always knew his name, someone always knew the stories. That some were completely distorted and inaccurate meant nothing, he'd done close enough differently. It all amounted to the same in the end.

It was miraculous, only months (was it a year now? It all seemed to run together without anyone or anything to mark the passing of time.) before he hadn't notice at all. Oh, he knew there were stories, he knew he'd had a reputation, and at times he'd used it shamelessly. He knew just the right places and the right people knew his name to give him hassle whenever he stayed in one place or sought pardon. But it'd never been so widespread. It'd never been so clearly like a rotting growth across the countryside.

Now that he simply wanted to be forgotten, simply disappear where no one would know his name in the hope that one day the world would forget it—and all of his deeds—as if they'd never happened, he couldn't escape it.

His eyes were opened, and he couldn't escape the truth, no matter how far he fled, how long he ran. He'd left a trail of fire and devastation behind him as surely as if he were Charlemagne, and what did he have to show for it? What did anyone?

Was it his penance to see how far he'd reached, how much harm he caused? How many lives had he damaged, how many had he ruined? How many lives had he cost? How many bastards had he let loose across the lands, and what had they done?

What legacy had he made for himself, while he'd stumbled blindly through the world?

Whatever it was, it was thoroughly well deserved. He'd done it all, hadn't he? Like father, like son, and what a father was he.

He frowned down at himself. The silk he wore was ruined now with dirt and mud, but he didn't have the heart to change them, nor the coin to pay for newer ones. It was just as well, in ruined silk he didn't stand out in the small villages he kept to.

He sighed, as he settled atop a crate full of dubious supplies. This small village...he hadn't heard stories yet. He'd only just arrived, but there was a chance. He needed to believe there was a chance, or he really would be wandering all of his life.

Something crashed nearby, and he glanced up to gauge what caused the disturbance, but found nothing. Perhaps someone had lost control of their washing, that was possible. He certainly didn't see anything like gaping, as he'd come across in some of the earlier villages he'd visited. Of course, he supposed he'd looked far more impressive then. And a bit more raving mad.

A bit more desperate to find an easy solution to ease the guilt that crushed in on him. A way to forget Naples, and everything else before. Most everything else.

He'd found nothing, and now he'd found he'd stopped looking.

There was a flurry of movement, and quite suddenly something snatched up his wrist and yanked him from his seat. He lurched forward only a step or two before his instinct to struggle won out, and he jerked away from the hand. Or attempted to. As it turned out, the grip around his wrist was stronger than he expected it to be.

Before he could try again, a harsh—and surprisingly feminine voice spoke. "No time, just run."

Run. Now, there was a command, a pleading he'd heard more times than he could probably count. Run, run before my husband finds you, before he catches you, before they arrive. Just keep running, and don't ever look back.

Of course, he'd done nothing here to warrant the need to run, so it could only mean, like all others, his stories spread to this town. Particularly nasty ones, so it seemed.

Disappointing as it was, painful as the purgatory he found himself in could be, he had no true desire to die. No true desire to spend his life in a cell, even if he deserved to stay in one. So he would run. He would flee the very thing he'd sought to—he'd willfully created for himself.

The woman, whom he just now registered wore clothing unfitting of the village (or indeed of much anywhere he'd been) they ran through, said nothing more as they ran through the streets. Curiously, there was no fear in her face, nor panic, nor concern. Only determination.

It might have given him pause, made him wonder whether she ought to be the one he fled instead, but he saw no hostility in the glimpses he caught behind brown tresses. And he found himself distracted by something more unsettling than the strange woman who dragged him through the streets.

No one stood in the doorways of the buildings. No one leaned from windows or attended the half-prepared washings. No one tended gardens, and very most important in a small village like this one, no one stared or followed after the two strangely clad people speeding down the streets.

Something was gravely wrong. And he was beginning to think it had nothing to do with him, for once.

Without warning, the woman pivoted on her heel and dragged him around a corner, flush against the side of a building.

"What's-"

"Hold this." She pressed a square box, made of something close to steel, into his hand. Her attention, however, remained on the road behind them, over his shoulder and around the building. "When I say so, press that blue button there, understand? Good."

He barely had time to nod before she dashed back out to the road, lifting her hands. The figure of a tall man in a dark hood seemed—almost—to materialize on the road a small house's distance from where she stood. From where he stood, still concealed by the village house, he couldn't get a good look at the man's face, but...it simply wasn't wise by any stretch to step into view until he understood what was going on.

"Look, let's talk." The woman spoke English, he recognized that now, but he knew too little of it to place her accent. "You're lost, yeah? I understand that. Believe me, I do. This world is strange, it's cold, and it's nothing like home. It's confusing, and it hurts. But I can help, if y'let me."

The sound the figure made was like nothing human. He would have thought he'd misheard, but it continued, in some strange, rasping sound. The woman gave no indication that its sound was anything out of the ordinary, and he began to think this was a terrible, terrible dream borne of too much drink and too little food. In fact, he was almost certain of it.

She was speaking again, he realized, words flowing in that odd accent of hers once more, almost too quickly for him to make out. From where he stood, her expression was hard, lined with the weight of far more years than he would have initially thought. "Then I'm sorry, but that was your only warning."

She lifted a hand, pointing at him, and snapped "The button!" He'd very nearly forgotten he'd been holding anything at all, but the mad situation, and the strength of her command assuaged any doubts he'd normally held.

The box in his hand clicked, and the air around him—around them as well, he assumed—hummed. It was a strange, tingling sensation, that prickled all across his skin and yes, clearly this must have been some sort of dream. What else could explain this? She spoke again, but though he caught her words, he didn't understand them, not enough of them to know what she spoke of, anyway.

He didn't have long to wonder what the words might have been, nor why his mind might have conjured something like this, before light shot from each of the buildings and surrounded the man. A painful shrieking sound split the air, and he clasped his hands to his head, letting the box fall.

When the sound and the light faded, the woman stood alone in the street, and for just a moment—perhaps it was a trick of his still-blurred vision—she seemed to sag in place, as if the weight of the entire sky dropped itself fully upon her shoulders.

A moment later she straightened and strode toward him, as full of purpose and determined energy as ever, though still gazing over her shoulder where the man once stood. For all her determined frown, there was a distance in his eyes that made him question whether she quite realized where she stared.

First there bore more pressing questions. "Who—what was he? What was that light? That sound? It just-" He trailed off when he realized her attention had shifted from the street to where he stood. And she gaped at him in an all too familiar way.

So she did recognize him after all. Or, did now, at least. What sort of fate did he hold to encounter the one person in the village who seemed to recognize him so readily?

"...You know me."

His words seemed to jar her out of her shock enough to speak, at least. "But...how? You-you're..."

He sighed. How many times had he heard this, now that he fled from it? Far too many. "Giacomo Casanova, yes."

"...dead."

Ah. Well that was different.

-

AN: For those unaware, the story on Casanova's side picks up in Episode three, after the end of his autobiography, but before he arrives at the Duke's palace. It's also very probably (but I'm not saying for sure) before he decides to enhance the stories of his deaths. I'm guessing he's somewhere between 35-40, but I could be wrong. This is also probably the last time I'll write in his POV if I can help it, because it's just...not easy to illustrate the world, much less what lies ahead, through his eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

AN: This one took a bit longer, because I kept getting distracted-I mean-it was sort of a complicated and awkward thing to write. Yet, it needed to be done, so we shall see where the story goes from here.

...

"But you can't be..." His words didn't immediately register. How could they? Because he was most definitely the Doctor. Outlandish, filthy clothing, slightly wrong hair, eyes of the wrong hue...it was still undeniably him. "I...watched you die."

If his expression were confused and curious before, now it was simply baffled, but something remained reserved in his eyes—closer to the blue of the Doctor she'd first met, now. "I am no spirit, I assure you. You've mistaken me."

Wait, he'd said something before, hadn't he? A...name. And that wasn't right. There was no familiarity, no recognition in his gaze. Could...could he have slipped through time somehow, and that half Time Lord side of him triggered some sort of half-regeneration? He'd mentioned to her once before, years ago, that his memories were sometimes confused after regenerating.

She shook her head. "You don't remember me."

A flicker of something passed through his expression. Was it a memory? Guilt? "Madam, I've never died. I cannot be whomever you believe I am."

Oh, no, she wasn't giving up so easily. Not this time. If he didn't remember, she'd take him to the TARDIS, and...if that didn't jog his memory, she'd find a way to make him remember. There had to be something.

She reached out for his hand, but he took a step backward, and glanced about the surrounding area warily. "Where is everyone? There should be an entire village of people gathering here about now."

"I'm sorry, but...they're gone." His gaze snapped back to her, though he made no response. "That creature drained the life out of all of them to support itself. If I hadn't found you when I did..."

Horror flickered across his features, and he dashed away from her, down the worn street. "Wait—Doctor!"

She stifled the urge to feel hurt as he vanished through the village's twisting roads without even missing a step. The village wasn't large enough to lose him in, and he'd find what he was looking for quickly enough. The question was, what to say, if he still couldn't remember who he was.

She frowned, following after, in a more direct path than he took. What had he called himself again?

It wouldn't any easier to see the evidence of the Shadeling's work than it was to imagine it. She hadn't expected it to have been so established, or so cunning. When she'd announced her presence, she hadn't expected it'd slip away, or draw all of the villagers into one place, compelling them all with the psychic link it'd built over its time hiding away.

She hadn't known it could, and now an entire village of people were dead. Except she'd found the Doctor alive. He had to be the Doctor, because how else would he have resisted the psychic call without even realizing he had? That had to count for something.

She found him just where she expected, and the remains of the villages were just as unpleasant to see. Two hundred people all gathered together, aged into unrecognizable husks. Even their clothing were nothing more than threadbare rags, ready to collapse into dust at the slightest disturbance.

He stood still enough that she doubted he was breathing. She didn't need to see his face to know the look of horror, the one of disbelief he wore. He'd blame himself, even if he didn't know why. It would sicken and twist his stomach...but it'd give her a chance to get through to him. That had to be worth it.

It needed to be.

She didn't reach up to touch him when she approached, but he glanced over his shoulder a moment before she spoke, anyway. "I'm sorry. There was nothing I could do."

He shook his head. "How is this possible?"

"It's-it's complicated." She buried her hands into her pockets to resist the urge to reach out and take his shoulder. "I can't even explain it. But I can show you, if you'll come with me?"

There was such weariness in his strange blue eyes when he turned to look at her once more. "Go where?"

She couldn't explain the TARDIS, not in any way he'd believe. She couldn't explain that she hoped to jar his memories without his fleeing once more, so she said nothing. Instead, she held out a hand to him.

He stared long enough, that she began to wonder whether she would need to say something after all, before he finally reached out and took her hand. His smile might have seemed genuine if she hadn't known him so well. "Show me this place."

She offered a small smile, and turned to lead him back home. The silence that stretched from that first step onward made her grateful that the village, at least from where they stood to where she'd landed the TARDIS, was not very long at all. Even though it might have meant saving some or all of them if the village had been longer—if it had taken some of the villagers a bit longer to make it to the field of slaughter.

She hadn't locked the doors this time, so she spared herself the awkwardness that would have been glancing back to see his impression of approaching so small a structure. Even resolutely ignoring him and pulling him into the ship as if nothing were wrong didn't avoid the moment that no Doctor ought to have, though.

His slim hand, softer than it used to be, yanked from hers as she made her first few steps onto the ramp, and whatever he spoke was too fast and too quiet for her to catch.

She bit her lip a moment and took a steadying breath, before turning toward him. While he gaped openly at the interior of the TARDIS, nothing in his expression or body language spoke of the urge to run outside and measure the distance again by himself. She took it as encouragement.

"Yeah...she's bigger on the inside. Much bigger. That alright?"

He didn't immediately answer, but the fact that he walked further into the room, brushing by her with barely a notice, must have meant it was. For a moment, his expression held wonder and fascination, before confusion and annoyance crept back in, and he looked over his shoulder at her. "You said this would provide answers, all I find are more questions!"

"It will, just...trust me. A bit longer." She walked past him to the console, sending them into space. The more distance she put between herself and the village of the dead, the faster, the better chance she might feel just a bit better. Besides that, she hadn't gotten this far—she hadn't found him again against all odds and impossibilities—just to lose him again now. If he wanted to escape, he'd have to remember himself first.

She offered him an apologetic look when she turned back toward him. The expression he wore was one of dubious curiosity. It was one she'd have expected to see on her Doctor if she'd put him through some impromptu mystery which did not—yet—include any of his favorite things. "It's just down this hallway. You'll see."

"Just how far do you intend to lead me?" There was a ghost of amusement in his voice and his eyes, for just a moment, even if he remained wary. "What could explain the village, the creature, and this?"

"Biology." She caught an incredulous look as she turned to start down the hallway without him, but she wasn't certain whether it was disbelief or a lack of comprehension. She didn't—couldn't—know how many memories were buried, how little he knew. He couldn't remember her, and he couldn't remember the TARDIS. He hadn't slipped, even a bit, yet.

If she were honest with herself, which she refused to be, she was beginning to become afraid that his memories were somehow lost irreparably.

Still, when she arrived in the sick ward, the Doctor followed after only two steps behind, still wary, and when she pointed for him to sit at the bed, he did. He fussed at the electrode pads attached to his head, but...perhaps he realized he'd come too far to turn back.

"Y'see...you've forgotten who you are. You think you're someone who you're not, and if I can get you to remember with this? You'll understand all of this."

She expected further incredulousness, perhaps his patience to wear out, and him to simply storm from the room. Some form of protest or another, at least. Instead, he simply deflated. When he spoke, his voice weighed heavy with exhaustion. "Another man?" He sighed. "The dead man you spoke of, I suppose?"

"I told you, it's complicated." And for reasons unknown to her, the TARDIS seemed to be stalling with the results on the DNA match. She needed it to synch with him before she could try anything else. She made a frustrated sound, and resisted the urge to re-input the code.

Just as he moved to stand from the bed, the results displayed.

Except they couldn't be. They couldn't be. It wasn't possible.

She nearly started when he stepped up next to her and stared down at the screen. He watched it flicker only a moment, before he turned his attention toward her. Despite the annoyance and stubbornness he seemed to display most often, there was sympathy in his gaze. If she could read him at all.

He reached out to touch her shoulder, but though she had the urge to shrug free of him, she couldn't seem to motivate herself to go through with it. She shook her head, and firmly fought down a sudden resurgence of tears. "It's not fair."

His voice held a familiar gentleness to it that only made the readings more wrong, and all the more painful. "It isn't." Yet, for the understanding in his gaze, she couldn't help but wonder if he was speaking of something else entirely.

She wanted to scream and insist that it wasn't possible. That he somehow just found another loop-hole the TARDIS didn't recognize, and it really was him. But there was nothing. No trace of Time Lord in him, no Artron radiation, no void particles. No buried memories. If this were somehow him, made entirely human, his memories weren't buried, they were gone.

And this wasn't the universe the Doctor (or even her Doctor) was born in. She knew better than almost anyone how faces and names and lives and people could change between universes. As mad and as unfair as it was, it was entirely possible this was the same face and a different man entirely. Completely the opposite of what she'd trained herself to understand of the Doctor.

For just one moment, the weight of the grief she'd held away from herself, the realization that her Doctor truly was gone, forever, which she'd kept one step ahead of, threatened to catch her.

She did the only thing she could, she panicked, and fled the room, not to any destination, even her room or the console chamber, only through the endless, shifting hallways of the ship. She could run until she no longer had the strength to run, and she'd never run out of pathway. She'd never have to be caught.

His day began not with hope, but with a chance for hope. The possibility that he'd found a village he could stay in, somewhere to live out his exile and be forgotten completely. The villagers were gone now, as was his chance at staying there.

He'd hoped for answers, for something to explain the impossible things he saw. He found none, and now he found himself trapped in endlessly twisting hallways. Endless hallways in a box that should barely have fit he and the nameless woman.

He created sensationalism all around him wherever he went, twisted it to his own purposes for his own advantages, whether for money, food, clothing, favor, or women, he'd always chosen to create it. He manipulated and he lied and he carefully arranged and pretended to be whatever he needed to be to succeed in creating that sensation, that scandal.

Of course he would be drawn into far more than he'd ever done himself when he'd hoped to flee all of that. Oh, this would be his penance alongside his name, wouldn't it? The people he'd hurt in his manipulations, the lives that he'd ruined, and all the spawn he might have unleashed on the world as consequence, this was just return. He'd made his fate, and it seemed too late to change it.

It was impossible to say how long he walked the hallways before he came across the woman again. More accurately, she found him, as he recollected his strength on a well-placed chair. There was a careful composure to the way she held herself, one he knew well enough not to call to attention. But she did not appear as if she might take flight again. Fortunate, that, because he doubted he would find his own way out in any timely manner.

She offered a tired smile. "Hi."

Whomever she believed him to be, a part of him wished he might have been that man instead. This similar face seemed as if it used to sit upon a better man than he. He obliged her tired smile with one of his own. "Hello."

Something flickered through her gaze, before she brought up a hand to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, an act clearly meant to smother discomfort. "My name's Rose. Tyler. Don't think I ever got around to that before." She offered an awkward smile, then. "I, uh...don't think I caught your name last time?"

He considered briefly using another name, his mother's perhaps? He'd used it before, briefly, when he'd needed to. Yet, after so much, he had no wish to further complicate the day. Even if she recognized his name, it meant little—the village was already dead. By tomorrow, he'd be traveling again, once more on an endless path, looking for a place where he could hide from the consequences of the life he lived.

If he were anyone else, the shrug and smile he offered might have been sheepish. Perhaps this strange woman wouldn't know his name after all. "Giacomo Casanova."

She gave no immediate vocal response, but the dance of expressions across her face made it clear she was familiar with the stories after all. Likely quite a few. For a moment, he thought she might burst into laughter, but the mirth faded into something merely friendly. "Yeah, I s'pose so." She sighed, and smiled once more. In her better days, he thought it might have been beautiful. "Right then. Casanova, yeah? Let's get you home."

Though she clearly lead down the hallway with purpose, and the intent of being followed, he lingered in his spot for a few moments more, sighing. His 'home' was anywhere but where he meant to be going.

AN: Evidently I suck at solo POV fic, so by necessity there will be more Casanova POV. Here's hoping that works out.


End file.
